We’ve arrived. The sun was shining when we landed on the island and everything seemed perfect until we found out that our bikes had arrived safely, but unfortunately our bags hadn’t. So far, we are spending our days in Reykjavík only with our bikes, the same clothes, eating while waiting to hear from EasyJet.

02 day

26 07 2013

0 km

64° 7’18”N, 21° 53’40”W

10:20

We’re testing our gear while still waiting for our bags.

03 day

27 07 2013

2 km

64° 7’18”N, 21° 53’40”W

16:30

Awaiting for our luggage, we got to look around the city when the weather was unusually warm (we experienced the warmest day of the year). We’re staying at Matěj Hlaváček’s place in Reykjavik (Cheers man!), with Bjork as our neighbour. Since our bags have arrived, we’ve tuned up our bikes, fixed our bags, got a fishing rod and enjoyed our last real food before we set out to meet nature and live on dry food only.

04 day

28 07 2013

2 km

64° 7’18”N, 21° 53’40”W

18:20

The rest of our luggage has arrived. What a joy!

05 day

29 07 2013

16 km

64° 8’12”N, 21° 44’55”W

07:18

We headed out of the city. Reykjavík is behind us, mountains and a road no. 430 ahead of us.

06 day

30 07 2013

115 km

64° 6’42”N, 19° 56’64”W

22:04

Sleep check with Hekla is behind us. We made our first campfire and some beans for dinner. The road has been mostly concrete and the landscape changes all the time. Gears have been ok so far but we wish we could say the same about our bottoms. We’d definitely recommend buying a hotdog in Arnes. We’re getting closer to the moon desert.

07 day

31 07 2013

165 km

64° 10’24”N, 19° 27’10”W

15:51

Fighting a strong headwind all day, we’re quite exhausted after a 50 km ride. The wind was so hard that teaming up and cooperation was required, otherwise it’d be impossible to keep riding, at times it seemed like the wind was controlling the bikes itself. We hope Island will spare us and the weather will be nicer during the following days.

09 day

02 08 2013

241 km

64° 44’10”N, 18° 04’39”W

23:51

The wind is extremely strong when we wake up and we have to walk our bikes at least half the way. We even get pretty tanned by the desert sun. After about 15 km, we meet a German guy travelling alone who warns us of a windstorm (up to 15 m/s) coming from the north. We keep moving to reach our goal of the day – the nearest river. We’re stopped by a ranger, when climbing a hill, he just wants to make sure that we have enough supplies and warns us of the danger that the upcoming days may bring. He leaves us but comes back to give us a ride to Nýidalur after he’s taken a look at what’s coming from the top of the hill. We load our bikes onto the platform of his jeep and see the desert from a totally different perspective. The driver tells us about his experience with pulling cars from fords, about lava that forms rivers underneath the glaciers and says that the locals don’t usually come to the desert during the summer and that it’s a touristy thing to do. Icelanders tend to go there in winter in their ‘super jeeps’. We reach Nyidaluru after about 50 km where we find a cabin where we can cook and use the ingredients left behind by other travelers. Meanwhile, the temperature drops to zero, the wind gets more intense and a massive rain shower embraces the landscape around us. We jump into our tent which is anchored to the ground by a ton of stones. Greetings from Mars!

10 day

03 08 2013

303 km

64° 44’10”N, 18° 04’36”W

20:38

We spend the whole day in our base camp in Nýidalur. We meet other adventurers – guys from Germany who decided to cross Iceland on foot, a French girl who cruises Iceland on her own, a Czech guy who wrote a book about Iceland and many more. The wind has been blowing all day, we’ve never seen anything like this before. We cook from local supplies, get a can of icelandic beer from some Czech guys whose car has broken down and we’re invited to eat sheep soup with a bunch of French tourists. We play poker in the evening and hope for a better weather.

11 day

04 08 2013

356 km

64° 45’93”N, 18° 02’07”W

14:20

The wind ceases and we set out again. We have to ford a number of rivers along the way, some of them are knee-deep and the ice water makes our legs numb for hours to come. There is not as many large stones on the path so we’re moving a bit faster. Around nine, when we look for a place to sleep, we’re held by Kryštof’s flat tire. A jeep full of young rescue workers coming home from a course cheersed us up, we were chatting for a moment and they gave us two packs of chocolate chip cookies. We spend the night here as well, it’s freezing.

12 day

05 08 2013

415 km

65° 21’98”N, 17° 20’20”W

20:38

Early in the morning, some kind of a slight noise wakes us up. Kryštof crawles out to find out what is making the noise and guess what, snow has covered everything all around us. We decide that the best thing to do is to continue sleeping. We eat breakfast accompanied by the typical Icelandic rain or, as we’ve named it, SPRAY. It’s almost invisible but it gets everywhere. We set out again, freezing and wishing to leave the moon desert behind us for good. We’re struggling with a quite major elevation difference but we have to keep riding otherwise we’d freeze. We go through two fords but luckily don’t have to take our shoes off to make it. The landscape starts to change after about 30 km. We’ve moved from a grey desert into a reddish world of Mars and then finally into the green pastures of our planet Earth. We say goodbye to the wasteland with three flat tires and a monumental waterfall Aldeyjarfoss. We spend the night on a meadow belonging to a local farm, surrounded by horses and tractors.

13 day

06 08 2013

480 km

65° 21’98”N, 17° 20’20”W

17:14

We get some tail wind to help us ride finally today. We’re moving towards Reykjahlid by the lake Mýtavn. There are sheep everywhere and the landscape reminds us of Alpine meadows with snow covered peaks of volcanoes in the far distance. Our first crisis is averted thanks to our energetic gel. Kryštof is saved and we reach ring road andhurry to the closest grocery store after not seeing any for a while in the desert. We buy food for the rest of our trip to the lighthouse, meet the Czech guys again and eat a local hot dog with fried onions. Afterwards we move to a beautiful place close to the town where Jakub spent a night last year. It reminds us of Tuscany. The temperature is down to zero but that doesn’t stop us from cooking an delicious dinner made of spaghetti tomatoes and garlic.

14 day

07 08 2013

490 km

65° 37’59”N, 16° 52’93”W

18:15

We wake up into a bright sunny day after the previous super cold night. Its quite hot! We spend the day relaxing after the hard hard work of the past few days. We set out to the top of volcano Hverlfell in the evening and eat hot dogs with fried onions in the lava field. Later we set out to take a dip in a cave which is known to be quite touristy. The temperature of the water reaches 46 degrees. After this big experience we fall asleep under night sky filled with stars.

15 day

08 08 2013

596 km

65° 38’57”N, 16° 48’57”W

13:22

We had fun relaxing and now we’re moving towards the sea. We stop by a sulphur field where mud and steam spews from the ground. The smell of sulphur is everywhere and the tail wind helps us to continue to Dettifoss, a monstrous waterfall. The road changes into a rocky path where riding with tail wind becomes a struggle to keep balance. In the evening, we stop in Ásbyrgi where it feels really american – buffet, petrol station, jeeps, sunset and burgers… We continue north with tail wind and the night ride is so fascinating, that we only stop to camp around midnight on a sand beach.

16 day

09 08 2013

640 km

66° 17’80”N, 15° 59’25”W

21:32

We slept in and we will pay for it! We only leave the beach at half one and get further stuck in a nearby store and begin our ride at five in the evening. Drizzle soon changes into a steady rain combined with a strong headwind and riding becomes unbearable. We push it through for twenty kilometers and then decide to end our long day. The search for a good and windless place to build a tent goes down the drain, so Kryštof comes up with a plan to spend the night in a sheep passage built under the road. We decide that it’s better to smell than be wet and lay down for the night.

17 day

10 08 2013

712 km

66° 22’70”N, 14° 31’97”W

21:00

We wake up at seven (super early for us!) and leaving the dark passage behind, we bike into a surprisingly sunny day. We follow the concrete roads and reach a fishing town Thorshofn before noon. We try a hearty special for lunch – the sheep guts mixed into an egg-shaped ball and sewn into skin. We’re fifty kilometers away from our goal destination, The road turns into a rocky path leading us deeper and deeper into an uninhabited headland. We’re taken aback by a nauseating fish smell, abandoned houses and wild horses. We ride past a waterfall falling straight into the sea and see a shipwreck. The more narrow the headland gets, the more stones there are and we finally see our goal in the distance. We ride through a field of sharp stones and then, when we’re almost there, a beautiful grassy landscape surrounded by monumental cliffs unfolds before us. The lighthouse Fontur stands in the middle of that in its entire beauty. We’re almost there, our goal right in front of us and we could not be more excited! We’ve made it even though some of the locals told us it was impossible. Well, it’s not anymore! We’re probably the first people who have crossed Iceland on fixies! We find out, to our great surprise, that the lighthouse is open and we’re welcome to enjoy the view of the horizon of the Greenland Sea. We cook a delicious dinner and spend the night inside. We fall asleep under the lighthouse light. A seal waves farewell to us as he briefly appears on the surface of the sea.